The Ship in the Jelly
by twobluebearies
Summary: For one time, the crew has to fight a rather fancy space phenomeon. Enjoy!
1. Meet the Jelly

"Three more points for team red.", Ensign Carson said. She was one of the voluntary referees for the annual basketball competition on the Enterprise. She wasn't interested in playing the sport, but she really liked to blow the whistle at every little occasion. "Team blue has six points, team red has eighteen." The points total was another thing she really liked to shout. Uhura, Sulu and Chekov who were on the blue team looked very unhappy. "Why did the Captain choose Commander Spock for his team? And why in heaven's sake is the Commander so good at basketball?", Sulu complained. The others shook their heads. They didn't know either.

After they had finished the game and after McCoy had unsuccessfully tried to persuade Spock to be happy about winning it, a shock wave went over the crowded sports deck. Many people fell down and Uhura was even hit by a falling ceiling board. The six officers didn't even wait for the red alert to go off.

OOO

"Scotty, please tell me what happened." Kirk and Spock were running out of the turbo lift, the other two directly behind them. McCoy had stayed on the sport's deck to help the ceiling-board-hit Uhura. "We flew into a nebula. Or at least I thought so. But it's like jelly, sir. We're stuck." Kirk and Spock changed expressive glances. Spock bowed one eye brow and asked: "Mister Scott, I may have misunderstood you. Did you just say we would be stuck in a giant clump of jelly?" "Yes, and I don't like it at all." Spock had walked over to the science station. "I am analyzing the cloud.", he announced. "Eighty percent are polyuronids and fifteen percent are water. The other five percent are unknown. The computer produced a picture of the cloud." Kirk glanced over his shoulders and burst out laughing. "I'm sorry," he said under giggles, "But it's just so ridiculous. It has exactly the same contours like the delicious jelly my granny used to cook!" He almost choked from laughing, so Spock began slapping him on his back, secretly laughing as well. "Whatever this is, we need to find a way out of it. Do you have an idea, Mister Spock?" "Sir, why we don't try to fly backwards?", Sulu asked from the conn. "That's an idea worth trying. Mister Sulu, a quarter impulse backwards." Kirk took place in the commando chair. "Nothing happens.", Sulu announced. "Sir, the jelly is congesting our engines, we cannot use 'em this way." Scotty had troubles screaming over the noise the engines made. "Mister Sulu, turn 'em out.", he added. But it was too late. A cloud of fire suddenly was were the Enterprise had been.

OOO

"Three more points for team red." Spock stood on the field, stunned as he was. "Again" was the only thing he could say before his head was hit by a flying basketball and everything around him went black.


	2. Something's Going On

Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound of diverse medical instruments can be very stressful, especially when you are having a strong headache. "Ah, you're awake by now. Nurse Chapel, please bring me a water, yes?" "Doctor, did you too have a déjà-vu while the game?" Spock tried to stand up from the medical bed but was held back by McCoy. "So, that was the reason why you didn't pay attention to the ball. By the way, Miss Uhura said that she's feeling sorry for throwing the ball in the wrong direction." "She wasn't hit by a ceiling board?", Spock asked and began to wander his glance through the room. She wasn't there. "Well, no. You must have been hit harder than I thought." Meanwhile Miss Chapel had come with the glass of water. "Before you ask what took me so long: Our synthesizer is broken so I walked through the corridor to the casino. They're having a party over there." Spock was confused, even if he didn't show it. "The casino is five decks under our position.", he said. "Drink.", was the only answer he got, combined with a concerned face expression from McCoy. Right after he got his fingers around the glass, a shock wave emerged and made Miss Chapel fall over, McCoy try to stop her from doing that and him to empty the full glass of water over his clothes. Spock was quite bewildered about that they weren't wet after that. The sound of an explosion was heard and everything went dark again.

OOO

"Wehet zupfp gnu.", a voice said nervously. Spock fingers reflexively turned on the universal translator which was located right under his left ear. He was irritated by how heavy his arm seemed to him. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were as heavy as stones. It almost felt like something was pressing him down; apparently he was laying on something similar to a medical bed. Whatever it was, it was strangely comfortable. Spock's analytical mind suddenly came to realize that he had the terrible feeling of needles, needles pinned into his head. Then he heard something. "This specimen is indeed differently from the others. It is the factor which let the program break down. We need to separate it if we want useful data.", a different voice than the first said. "That will be a delay. The master will not be pleased.", the first voice replied. The two voices fainted as if the speakers had moved on, but no footsteps were heard. Instead Spock associated the sound with fish being hit on the ground. The needles in his head felt like they were on fire.

OOO

He was standing in a desert and it was dark, apparently it was night. Where ever he turned his head all he could see was a big desert. Far, far away were some mountains. Spock began to walk in their direction.


	3. Kna Gets Rebellious

Volcan silk touched his skin. Its thickness seemed like a contradiction to its smoothness, but in another way, it was not. His coat with the big cowl and his trousers were wide shaped and very comfortable. Spock suddenly stopped wandering his thoughts. He asked himself not which but why he was wearing Volcan clothes. Then he even stopped walking and looked at the panorama. The mountains seemed familiar, the dunes and rocks seemed familiar, even the sand seemed familiar. For one time only one thought hushed through Spock's mind. Home. He granted himself one of his rare smiles.

OOO

Kna had had a very bad day. She decided to sit down and have a container of hot water mixed with an essence made from a life form. A life form from Nea. She watched the stars while one of her two tentacles was constantly splashing in her container. The other was supporting her triangle-shaped head; the end of the tentacle was next to her one big and black eye and on her dark blue skin. She really missed Nea, her home planet. She hated being away from it. She hated being on a space ship. And she especially hated her work. She absolutely disliked boarding the ships of unknown species, connecting their brains with the computer which created a world out of their thoughts and then to study them. She asked herself everyday at least once why they couldn't just ask alien life forms if they wanted to change data instead of acting extremely violently against them. She had once asked the master for an answer, but had gotten a night in the brig instead. The master never accepted opinions other than his own. She knew that she had to do something.

OOO

The morning had broken on. Spock decided to rest a little and enjoy the sunrise of the twin stars his planet circled around. He sat on a nearby rock and tried not to be blinded by the light of the already half-rose bigger and brighter sun. It doused everything in an orange light. It made the environment look peaceful and Spock forget how thirsty and tired he was. He waited excitedly for the second star which was a red dwarf to come up. He waited and waited, but nothing happened, although he knew that there was a time period of 247 seconds between the two sunrises. Something was seriously wrong. Spock knew that he knew what it was, but he just couldn't remember. It was like a wall within his brain. He tried the best he could to get behind it, but it was futile. He tried to calm himself. "I will find out later.", he said to the sand and the rocks. He was right and a few seconds later the environment disappeared into nothing. It was a deception and nothing was real. Absolutely nothing.

OOO

He didn't feel as heavy and tired as he felt the time before. Something was different. He opened his eyes and was puzzled to see a pattern. It took him a little to realize that it was a ceiling he was looking at. He turned his head and saw hundreds of beds like the one he was lying on. On each was one of his crewmember lying, their brains connected with cables to a big machine-like cube in the middle of the hall. He suppressed a scream of terror.


	4. Quite Fishy Things

It was quite painful to take the needles out of his head. He lay on his bed and pressed his teeth together. He was afraid that the people who owned this picture-producing machine could come around and find him awake. He finally removed all the needles and stood up. Spock fell over in the moment his feet touched the ground. His limbs were weak and useless. A strange pain rushed through his body. He took all his will and tried to stand up again. It worked this time and he stood there, holding himself on the side of the bed. He held himself so desperate that his fingers became white. He breathed deeply and made the next step to reach his neighbor's bed. It was a petty officer Spock met from time to time in the corridors. He went on to the next bed, holding himself as hard as he could. Another petty officer. He walked on and on, but couldn't find one of his friends. No Kirk, no Uhura, no Sulu. Not even Doctor McCoy. After a while, Spock sunk down to the ground and lay there for a minute or two. All he could think of were the pain in his whole body and his tiredness. Suddenly a pain wave emerged in his head and went down through his body. Spock lost consciousness after his mouth had produced a scream, much louder than he had wanted to.

OOO

Kna knew by now that she had a terrible day because not even her little mutiny had gone well. She had freed one of this other crew, but had obviously been too slow to get to him before somebody else could. The one she had chosen lay face down on the floor and seemed quite lifeless. Some technicians and scientists were standing around him, some with analyzing devices, others just watching the alien. It was a strange-looking creature, at least in Kna's eyes. He - their analyses had shown that it was male – had no tentacles but fleshy things instead, a soft and black thing between two pointy appendages on which seemed to be the head. She straightway felt sorry for him. He and the people he probably belonged to hadn't deserved the treatment they got. Kna stood there silently but screamed inwardly. She could have helped him, but now it was too late.

One of the scientist had carried Spock to the medical bed he had lain on and put the cables back to where they belonged. "Put this specimen back to the program of his herd.", he said to a technician who was standing next to him. The technician nodded and went away.

OOO

"Three more points for team red.", Ensign Carson said. Spock felt awake in a never-ending nightmare. It was a horrible feeling and he instantly decided to do something against it. He grabbed Kirk by his arms and pulled him from the court. "Jim, I really need to speak with you.", he said. "Right now?", the Captain asked, "I was about to score three more points." "Basketball should be secondary in this moment. The crew is in danger."


	5. The Ending

"What do you mean, in danger? I don't understand." Kirk said. "Captain, did you not perceive something unusual?" "You mean like this for ever repeating game of basketball?" "For example. Wait a minute! You know about that and you do not see something alarming in it?" "Now that you are saying…" Kirk seemed to be quite frightened by his own ignorance. "Do you know what the reason for this is? A time lapse or something like that?" "It is much worse than that. We have been assaulted by some strangely fishy lifeforms." "Spock, you must be kidding. Fishy lifeforms? And how should that have put us in our current situation?" "Hey come on, we haven't finished yet!", somebody shouted from the court. "Just play without us.", Kirk replied, not to the well of McCoy. He tried to play all alone against the other three, but failed epical. "So, and what did your creatures do and why do you know about that?", Kirk asked Spock, trying to ignore McCoy's scoundrels coming from the field. "I woke up. We all seem to be inside of a large hall and everybody is tied to some sort of a medical bed with terrible needles in their heads. This surrounding seems to be artificially made to study us." "I see the problem. We should wake up and flee, don't we?" "That would be a perfectly fine solution. But how?" In that exact moment, an alarm went off. Only strange thing about it was that the blinking light wasn't red but green. All officers moved nevertheless to their station, as fast as they could. "I always thought that that light was red. Strange…", murmured Sulu while passing by. Kirk and Spock stayed where they were. "What did you do to wake up? I think we need to do that. When we are on a ship, there's probably another captain. I want to speak to him or her." "Spock thought for some seconds before saying: I think we need to do something unusual, something we would never do in real life. I assume that this makes the program break down." "Do you remember what we learned at the academy? If there's a red alert, stop partying. I suppose that this is the same for a green alert." "I remember Chris…I mean Miss Chapel saying that there would be a party at deck five." "Isn't sickbay on this deck?" "Yes, and there is the momentarily position of the casino. Shall we go?"

OOO

After a long and thorough search, they had finally found a turbolift which brought them to deck five. It had for some reason been covered by a large flowered curtain. They could see the casino doors as they went out of it. And really, behind those doors found a quite spectacular celebration its place. Although many people were in there, nobody seemed to notice them. Kirk could grab a nearby drink, have a sip and deem it as terrible, before the ship exploded again. Sulu seemed to have the same bad idea time after time.

OOO

Kirk was desperately trying to remove the needles from his head when he heard fish slapping on the ground coming nearer. Someone removed all the needles in a fast and painless way. "Thank you.", he said softly. He didn't dare to open his eyes, so he couldn't see Kna's one black eye looking pitiful at him. He opened his eyes and stood up after the slapping fish had be gone.

OOO

Spock was shocked and happy at the same time to see his friend bowing over him, removing the last needles. "Do you have a universal translator?", his friend asked. Spock nodded, what made it hard for Kirk to grab after the needles.

OOO

 _Captain's log, Stardate 43291.7: Finally, our journey goes on after we have been assaulted by a until now unknown squid-like species. My first Commander and me could free the crew after promising their "Master" to give him a copy of our ships library. Nobody has been hurt and the damages on our ship have already been repaired. Although, our sense for reality will need some more time to heal completely_ _. End of recording_


End file.
